Arts & Culture
My First Hummus
By Janna Gur / December 15, 2008
Janna Gur, author of The Book of New Israeli Food, is guest blogging this week as one of Jewcy‘s Lit Klatsch bloggers. Janna’s book is a cookbook highlighting foods of the Jewish Diaspora.
In Israel hummus is a religion. There are books dedicated to hummus, guides for hummus restaurants, hummus blogs and hummus fan clubs. There is hummus aristocracy – half a dozen places enjoying national acclaim and worthy of a special trip (Said in Acre, Ali Karawan in Jaffa to name a few) as well as "regional" hummus spots known only to locals. There are upscale restaurants serving hummus with fancy toppings and run down holes in the wall with seating arrangements on the sidewalk. If you are a real Israeli you must love hummus. At the age of 16, when I immigrated to Israel, I wanted nothing more than to be a real Israeli, and yet, my first encounter with hummus didn’t go too well.
I was in my senior year in high school, hardly six months in Israel with a vocabulary of 500 words in Hebrew. Together with my class I went on my first ever tiyul shnati (annual outing) to Eilat and had my first kumsitz (Israeli style get together by the campfire). The menu consisted solely of canned foods, one of them a particularly vile version of hummus spread, now luckily off the market. One tentative bite was enough to clarify that hummus was not for me.
A year later, on another tiyul shnati, this time to the Golan Heights, I chanced upon a restaurant in the Banias nature reserve, where I witnessed the following scene: long rows of tables filled with customers who with rhythmical circular movements mopped up a whitish paste using chunks of pita. "What are they doing?" I asked my classmate. "Eating hummus … duh"
At this point I already knew about 1000 words in Hebrew, but decided to keep them all to myself, and not to share with my classmate my thoughts about the level of local culinary finesse.
Another year passed and I was already a student at the Hebrew University, almost an old timer, with an extensive vocabulary of 2000 words, but still a hummus virgin. A bunch of friends were going to a famous downtown Jerusalem hummus joint Ta’ami. For obvious reasons I wasn’t keen to join but they talked me into it. And, god, was I glad that they did.
My first taste of real hummus was a revelation. The spread was airy as a mousse and yet filling, flavourful yet subtle. The warm whole chickpeas added texture and the garlicky sauce provided the kick. I later learned that particular style of fluffy light hummus is typical of Jerusalem. The owner, famous for his bad temper, stood in the middle of the restaurant urging customers to finish and vacate their seats for the next wave of hummus lovers. "Don’t eat, swallow," he spurred us on, "and don’t even think of ordering coffee…."
Ta’ami closed down a few years later and the legend has it that the owner’s children brought about its decline. "Instead of yelling at customers, why don’t we enlarge the operation," they suggested to their father, and pointed out that the adjacent store had recently been vacated. Their father went along with the idea, and suddenly there were enough tables for everyone, no need to yell, and no hungry crowds at the doorstep. The magic was gone. Another version of the story is much less dramatic, although probably more precise: the quality went down and hummus lovers found another place in which to worship the chickpea deity.
Janna Gur, author of The Book of New Israeli Food, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she’ll be here all week. Stay tuned.
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I have always been a grits fan. Even as a kid. They’re my comfort food. Now that I live in New York my mom mails me bags of grits every few months because the only grocery store near me that carries them has the instant kind, and that’s just not right. I don’t think I even tasted anything made with chickpeas until I was in high school. Seems I missed some good opportunities to throw stuff at the ceiling.
Did you always love grits? I do now, but not as a kid. The ceiling story is true. I went to prep school, in Chattanooga, and at breakfast we’d watch our grits congeal as they cooled. Being starchy, grits are quite adhesive, so at the right moment one could toss them up and make them stick to the ceiling, like enormous spitballs. No lie!
Anyway, while hating grits I loved chickpeas (garbanzo soup). If we’d had hummus to start the day, we’d have spared the ceiling.
???? ???
The point of my comparison would be to thank the deity for your better socialization skills and attractiveness to kind, commitment-minded Irish women.
Now there’s an ethnicity that could stand some exposure to broader culinary experiences.
I don’t doubt you’re quite the family man, and not just using that persona as a mask for or ballast against much more devious realities and infinitely more gruesome habits - despite the fact that others less refined than you surely have. Tendentiousness can be a way of letting off steam from the occasional sense of boredom that arises out of, among other things, the comfort of marital bliss. It’s good to know that you’re sure of which motivation is the dominant one when it comes to your own life. Though one sounds more productive than the other.
I’m a Jew from the South, and it’s true that I can never get enough grits. But I love some good hummus too. There’s room at my table for everybody.
Some of them are more substantive than others, habib. An interesting detail worth considering here, another one there. If only the sum of them cohered into a well-composed and realistic worldview, though.
As far as your self-glorification goes, sure I enjoy reading your comments - even if for nothing more than the sheer fun and spectacle that comes of it. But let’s not confuse entertainment with analysis. I wonder if the downfall of the previously dominant medium, television, was accompanied by its devolution into the infamous form we call "infotainment" for a reason. If you’re able to bring that form, in a more witty and occasionally politically oriented way, into cyberspace, that’s certainly nice and all. But it doesn’t make you Cardinal Richelieu or Thomas Jefferson, or even Thomas Paine, so much as it does a more restrained and harmless and slightly better composed Ted Kaczynski – a man admittedly no less well educated than yourself (or any of the others), but just as, er, opinionated and bombastic… in his own way, mind you.
At some point tone, adherence to reason and the topical direction of the speaker does count for something in determining the extent of his relation to sanity if not relevance.
Zeevico-
"The circle jerk’s almost over."
Ok, you’re right. I’m done. Except for this:
Isaac-
Kaczynski- isolated, semi-autistic hermit, without friends or family viciously sending lethal devices to strangers.
Me-married, father, involved in my community and my kid’s school, many close friends (hey, I just hosted two consecutive dinners for 10-one on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas day-for which I did all the cooking. I have an Irish wife and one learns early to keep them away from the stove. You shoulda been there. Fabulous meal-or does that sound insecure of me to say?) And I’ve never committed a violent act in my life.
And the point of your comparison would be….?
Now Ismail–get ready for one last tug. The circle jerk’s almost over.
And by the way, as long as you folks are so disposed to Sesame Street psychoanalysis, what do you make of this, from the very odd lbjack?
"…a congealed puddle of grits, whose only pleasure was pride of ownership of the one I could make stick to the ceiling."
Isaac, my friend, the only question worth pursuing in little Todd’s hissy fit is why he (and you, I guess) postulates that my efforts at enlightenment here must stem from insecurity.
Now, I’m as vulnerable to the sorts of doubts and fears that will occur to any thoughtful person of a philosophical bent, but I wouldn’t say that these dominate my internal life to the extent that some of you folks seem to wish.
Why appeal to this hypothesis in the first place? I suspect it’s the fault of that Reader’s Digest version of Freud that we all take in with our mother’s milk these days, the one which prompts those put off by someone’s unapologetic acknowledgement of his achievements or virtues to say, "Yeah, but beneath it all he must be compensating for something…".
If there is a value to the psychodynamic view of human mental life, it does not lie in this sort of automatism-see x, infer y, the same y for the same x in every case. You need to appeal to something other than the brute fact of my unambiguous admiration for certain of my talents, or the fact that I don’t pussyfoot around the stupidities of others, to support the claim that these tendencies must reveal a deep insecurity within. Fortune cookie stuff, that.
Of course, you may certainly say that I’m wrong or nasty or a horse’s ass-happens all the time. But the insecure thing….well, I’m tempted to speculate about why anyone would meet coherent, educated, decently-composed comments with a charges about the personal psychology of the author, but then I’d be violating the very principle I just explained. So I’ll ask you instead….. why do you suppose that so many people here think that speculation about my employment status or my personal demons are fitting responses to my substantive arguments? Could it be that they become so unmanned and humiliated by my Oedipally fearsome presence that they….
Oops, sorry. That last bit just slipped out.
. . . if they live in the South. They don’t need hummus, ’cause they got grits!
That said, it took me well past childhood to get to love grits. Not so with hummus. Both are as common as can be, but while the huskless corn of grits is as bland as oatmeal and needs help, the chick peas of hummus are tasty by themselves. I’d have been far more tractable as a kid if I’d got a bowl of hummus to start off each day, instead of a congealed puddle of grits, whose only pleasure was pride of ownership of the one I could make stick to the ceiling.
???? ???
Come on, Ismail. Lighten up. And lay off the direct profanity.
Todd moved on from speculation about your employment to the deeper matter at hand – which drove said speculation. And that deeper matter is whatever prevents you from addressing your insecurities in a less confrontational manner, rather than spewing it at bystanders. Clearly that’s a topic you’d prefer to avoid, which is fine. But to redirect as much phlegm at Todd as you just did makes it impossible to see what you feel you’ve achieved with your latest post.
Maybe it was some bad, Palestinian hummus.
"To repeat what I attempted to convey in my previous comment, you’re not adding to the conversation, again, about food, by suggesting that the post somehow has to do with the exploitation of Palestinian ingenuity and culture."
Oh, dry up. Did they teach you anything about critique at NYU? Is the notion that seemingly neutral passages are invisibly inflected by politics and require giving the reader a poke in the intellectual ribs in order that he may see what is before his eyes-is that notion news to you?
Plus, you humorless little prig, you’re responding to a single sentence that I’m sure most readers saw as a fairly innocuous jab at the dominant discourse here.
Oh, and what about this:
You said, "For, I am now convinced that you are most likely unemployed …"
I disabused you of that comforting fantasy and you reply, "Harping on your success and abilities where it is irrelevant…"
Even granting you the reference to my brief resume as "harping", please explain how addressing and refuting a specific claim of yours is "irrelevant". You can’t, of course, but I will enjoy watching you try.
You are still a shit, and getting littler by the minute.
Oh how easy it is to call someone ignorant and entitled!
I am confindent enough in my education, writing abilities, and worldview to not dignify your petty insult with a more direct response. Personally, I don’t really care much how good your writing is, nor do I have any concern for how long it takes you to crank it out. Harping on your success and abilities where it is irrelevant is a clear throwback to your deep insecurites, and your resorting to expletives is enough of a confirmation. While I am contented to hear you have successfully lived out the so-called American Dream, I am profoundly disappointed that your success has not made you a less disagreeable person.
I maintain my point that if you had a life (employed or not), you’d have much less time to conduct a witchhunt of Jewcy writers and their posts. Perhaps you’d do something more constructive like start your own web site where you express your views and gain enough confidence to attach your identity to them, and perhaps even name your profession.
To repeat what I attempted to convey in my previous comment, you’re not adding to the conversation, again, about food, by suggesting that the post somehow has to do with the exploitation of Palestinian ingenuity and culture. However, your attempt to do just that has dismembered any shred of credibility you had left, and your immediate return to baseless personal attacks forces me to question whether you are truly deserving of the success you have had.
Ha! The "unemployed" trope again rears its addled head! Do you little squids realize how entitled and foolish you sound when you hurl "unemployed" about as though it were the most debased and scurrilous position a human could find himself in? Are you aware of the number of good and sensible people who find themselves unemployed due to the ministrations of the kleptocracy to whom we have given such absolute power? Can you imagine having a kind thought for them?
Do you suppose that, because I write stylistically elegant and grammatically sound prose on short notice, that I must labor long and hard to produce same? Nope. It will take me about as long to write this comment as it takes you to read it. Well, maybe a little less than that, considering the moving lips and all.
As it happens (to repeat yet again), I am fortunate enough to practice a profession that rewards me reasonably well and allows me, after long years of nose having spent quality time with grindstone, the luxury of setting my own hours. I also own two (count ‘em) two houses, one mortgage-free and the other soon to be. No family money-all done via my labors and those of my wife. In a part of the country where houses are expensive! In other words, I enjoy a life that most in your generation will never see.
Now, none of this speaks to anything but my good choice in parents, who sacrificed mightily to give me a decent life and educational opportunities, my intelligence and disposition towards and skill at a highly compensated field, and my good fortune. And if I were unemployed, my folks would still have been excellent people and I would still be smarter and kinder than you, who think it a nifty damnation to sneer at people you imagine down on their luck.
Now, aren’t you a little shit?
Wow Ismail…
You know, we spend quite a bit of time discussing your frequent (or should I say, incessant) political diatribes here at Jewcy. And granted, any post that expresses an opinion on such a contested subject as politics is in essence exposing itself to criticism and debate.
However, your attempt to hijack a discussion over a restaurant and a popular dish and turn it into yet another expression of your obsessive and frustrated political views only further undermines your own credibility. For, I am now convinced that you are most likely unemployed (how else would you have the time or energy to devote to such a fruitless endeavor), insecure, and angry at the world.
I’d say don’t quit your day job… but it appears you already have.
My, my. Touchy, aren’t we?
First, hummus is not a "pan-Mediterranean dish", unless there is an Italian or Provencale history of the delightful stuff that I’m unaware of.
Second, my comment wasn’t meant to suggest that the ethereal substance was specifically Palestinian. Let’s review, shall we? I said, "I wonder which Palestinian they stole the recipe from?" You may be aware that any Arabs you may encounter in Israel are very, very likely to be Palestinian. And if an Israeli "chef" were to come up with a palatable hummus, it would be natural to suppose that a nearby Arab had been robbed of his culinary patrimony. Since the Arabs available for culinary plunder in Israel are almost all Palestinian, I conclude that a Palestinian has been robbed of his version of an Arabic standby. QED.
And yeah, it’s an Arabic dish. If the Syrians descend on Russia and evict the indigenes, then start cooking cholent, that inedible leaden stew would still not be an Arabic dish.
Maqluba? Knafef? These are without question Palestinian foods. Hummus? No. Sorry. Hummus is not a Palestinian food. Hummus is a pan-Mediterranean dish whose origins predate recorded
history, cropping up in some form wherever chickpeas thrive (after all,
the idea of mashing and seasoning chickpeas is not particularly
complex). Though maybe for you it might prove difficult.
who was too busy scrawling quatrains of political dissent to e-mail his publisher with the recipe.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Wow. Ta’ami’s hummus is that good? I wonder which Palestinian they stole the recipe from?
Uh yeah… I don’t know where you get your information from there Janna but Harry and I had Hummus at Ta’ami just 2 days ago. Now I admit that it is entirely possible that we were both simulataneously suffering from Hummus induced flashbacks. The Hummus is that good that it can indeed make you hallucinate. But yeah, Ta’ami is, unless I am completely fucking nuts, alive and kicking and still serving awesome, cherry-popping Hummus. If you’re ever in downtown Jerusalem, follow the signs to McDonalds then when you get there, tell Ronald to fuck right off, cross the street and veer to your left. That’s were the Hummus of your dreams is at.
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I blog at Jewlicious.com
This blog post strikes me odd. Janna, I am a big fan of your cookbook (except I found the use of chicken bouilion in a recipe somewhat offensive ;) and have given it to a lot of friends as presents but I have to admit I am a bit confused as to how you do not know that Ta’ami is indeed still open. Not only has Ta’ami not closed but it remains to be the one of the most popular hummus joints in Jerusalem. In fact, Ta’ami recently did major renovations and expanded and now has much more seating and even a take-away counter.
I love hummus (have since I first tried it) but the for the last year the only place I’ve found hummus is either some nasty canned kind or at Greek restaurants. Where I discovered that though Greeks have a fine pita – their hummus is this weird runny, white stuff that was horrible. Actually, it wasn’t that bad but it still wasn’t real hummus to me. So glad I moved/got moved to a place that has a Jewish population and I can now get the good stuff.
According to this web page http://www.jerusalemite.net/guides/832/ta‘ami , which has a comment purportedly dated November, 2008, Ta’ami is still chugging along. For which I am grateful.
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